Diablo III: Reaper of Souls London Launch Party – Interview with Alex Mayberry

On March 24th, Diablo III lead producer Alex Mayberry signed copies of the game and met hundreds of fans in London during the Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Launch Party.

Blizzplanet writer Benjamin Vogt was there to interview Alex Mayberry to ask a few questions about the new Diablo III expansion.

Transcript

Benjamin: Sir, good evening and welcome to London.

Mayberry: Thank you.

Benjamin: Sir, thank you again. So what are you plans into the future of end-game content after the launch?

Mayberry: We are launching Reaper tonight, so we are not really giving out what features we are doing. However, we are currently — at the end of every game, there is always some features that didn’t quite make it in. So some of those things that didn’t quite make the launch, we are already planning a content patch.

We have hinted at a few things. I would say follow Josh Mosqueira on Facebook, and on Twitter; and you will probably get a hint.

So we are planning the next content update for post launch. Beyond that, though, we really want to kind of watch what the community, watch how the game does, listen to players, find out how well-received Reaper is, hear what they like and what they want more of. Then based on that feedback, we are going to carve out our long term plan for Diablo III.

Benjamin: Has the team discussed daily challenge-mode objectives? This could add another huge amount of replayability in the game, and would make it even more compelling to users.

Mayberry: What feature was that?

Benjamin: Challenge-mode objectives.

Mayberry: Oh! Well. So with Reaper, we are introducing adventure-mode and that is kind of laying the foundation for more features that will be more not tied to the story, more re-playable. So that is something we are actually talking about. I can’t really give you real answers; but absolutely, it is something we are interested in.

Benjamin: A few days ago, a teasing image hit Twitter. What can you tell us about all those ladders the developers were researching?

Mayberry: Well, that is why I say to follow Josh Mosqueira, he is hinting at some things, and I think he is trying to figure out how to get really high up and unscrew a light bulb, or something. I am not sure; but honestly that is Josh foreshadowing things that might come.

Benjamin: How do you feel about the closing of the Auction House and how it might affect the game?

Mayberry: We are happy about it actually. you know the auction house– it was an experiment. It was a technical success. We made a very complex system. You know, the auction house did what it is supposed to do; but what it wasn’t supposed to do was to harm gameplay; and as we set up to make Reaper of Souls, lots of the community saw how the auction house was being used.

We just found it was interfering with the gameplay, and we found it was actually impeding with the actual gameplay; and what we really want– if they get the best weapon of the game, we want it to be because they had a great fight and slayed the monster. Not because they outbid someone, right?, and with as much work as we put into the auction house, at the end of the day … you know what? This is not helping gameplay. This is hurting design. Let’s shut it down.

Benjamin: Reaper of Souls beta testing closed about a month ago. Were there any new content or system changes included for release that players don’t know about yet?

Mayberry: I think probably the biggest thing that hasn’t been seen yet is the boss fight with Malthael.

Blizzplanet is a leading fansite covering news about upcoming Blizzard Entertainment licensed products. I also post previews and reviews. I have interviewed book writers and Blizzard game developers.

I was previously an employee of the OGaming Network (2003), and IncGamers (2008-2010). I was a guest newsposter for GosuGamers (World of Warcraft) a few years ago and for Diablofans.com (formerly Diablo3.com)